Progressive Muslims: Friends of Imperialism And Neocolonialism
(Or: The blog formerly known as Progressive Muslim Union North America Debate)

Monday, April 25, 2005

A reactionary "Islam" is being perpetuated by progressive identity politics

From the Ihsan blog (excerpts - please read entire article)

I stand neither in support or condemnation of the decision by Amina Wadud to lead a mixed-gender Jummah salat earlier this year....Yet, in the hullabaloo that followed events in New York, reactionary responses have been equally evident within the Muslim Wake Up/Progressive Muslim Union (MWU/PMU) camp. Though none have included direct threats, they are arguably as sinister in the way they are now increasingly co-opting tropes long employed by Orientalist intellectuals to debase Muslim scholarly traditions....The claims that MWU/PMU are merely local expressions of Islam are now no longer tenable, as MWU’s editorial stance moves beyond association with the Empire’s dominant culture to a position of direct involvement with its hegemonic project. When the authors of such supremacist nonsense include an American marine who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, it seems only a matter of time before MWU/PMU becomes the American liberal Muslim dream-come-true envisaged by the Rand report.